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Former twirling champ Tammi Conn now training future athletes

By SUBURBAN LIFE MEDIA

July 31, 2013

Those who work with Tammi Conn know she can be a very calming influence.

Valley View School District’s Director of Career and Technical Education credits her calm demeanor to her 21-year baton twirling career in which she received a full 4-year scholarship to Indiana State University, won the National Show Twirling Championship and the Twirling Unlimited International Twirling Champion and as Miss World Majorette.

“I learned how to keep calm during very intimidating interviews. I learned how to persevere, and how to work through pain and to not give up on my goal,” Conn said. “I also learned that if things don’t go your way today there’s still tomorrow and the sun will come up and your mom still loves you.”

Conn, who has four brothers, started twirling in a park district program when she was 4 years old. Although she nearly was pulled out of baton because the instructor didn’t take 4-year-olds in her class, Conn's natural talent and changed the instructor's mind.

For the next two decades, Conn put in long hours fine-tuning her skills and competing around the country.

“Some people thought that I felt like I was above them because I never
hung out or participated in after school events,” she recalled. “But my baton twirling friends knew the rigorous training schedule I had to endure in order to perfect my talent of baton twirling.”

These days, in addition to he Valley View duties, Conn works closely with eight baton twirling students. Her former students have been Feature Twirlers at University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, Indiana State University, Texas Tech University and the University of Hawaii.

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